We the Geeks: Best White House Science Petitions

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We the Geeks: Best White House Science Petitions

The Obama Administration does not support blowing up planets. Nor did it expect federal employees to work the day before Christmas. It won’t impeach President Obama or reallocate defense funds to NASA.
But the White House will share its official home brew recipe – it’s not classified. They’ll share it. All you had to do was ask, and 12,240 people did, as part of the White House’s We the People petition initiative.
Launched in September 2011, the petition system lets users create petitions for just about anything they can dream up (though, of course, the petitions and site are tightly moderated). Then, after garnering an initial 150 electronic "signatures," the petitions are posted online. If, after 30 days, a petition has earned enough signatures, the White House promises to issue an official response.
But there’s a problem. The petition system has become too popular. The initial benchmark of 5,000 signatures was too easy to achieve, and was quintupled to 25,000 in October 2011. On Jan. 15, the White House again bumped up the threshold to 100,000, so only the most popular ideas would rise to the top. Now there’s a petition to repeal that decision (signatures: ~700), and one asking to the administration to abolish what has become an “irritating sideshow” (signatures: 700+), and another asking the White House to please take the petitions seriously (signatures: 37,000+. Response: We’re listening. Seriously.).
Since September 2011, nearly 10 million signatures have been entered on the more than 141,000 petitions created. In the last two months of 2012 alone, 73,000 new petitions were created and 2.4 million people joined the system.
As of Jan. 24, there are more than 285 petitions awaiting signatures. The most popular, by far, is the request to legally recognize the Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group (signatures: 325,000+). Many of the petitions are requesting some form of tax regulation or gun control, or a ban on gun control, or a pardon for a convicted criminal. But among the most recent petitions are some that relate to science and tech.
Like, for example, the petition asking the administration to consider building a Death Star; 34,435 signatures later, it received the now-famous, fantastically space-nerdy, official, “No.”
In this gallery, we’ve collected some of our other favorite science-related petitions. And of course, included the White House homebrew recipe.
Because if there’s one thing we at Wired Science love as much as science, it’s beer.

White House Home Brew

Show Us the Aliens

Petition Signatures: ~1,860
Roswell. Area 51. Beeping robotic spaceballs. Aliens with a bizarre interest in anal anatomy.
It’s a trend among petitioners: The plea for transparency about contact with extraterrestrials. This petition, filed Jan. 1, suggests that such disclosures will usher in “A golden age of peace, prosperity, health, and abundance for all humans [and non-humans] on Earth.”
Already, the White House has responded to similar requests. “The fact is we have no credible evidence of extraterrestrial presence here on Earth,” an earlier response states.
“Why continue the cover-up? The secrets? It is 2013. We know better. It is time to unite. We are all one,” says the most recent petition, as if there’s additional evidence yet to be disclosed.
Believe us, people. We are just as eager as the rest of you to find out whether we are alone in the vast universe. But there is no proof yet.
Patience.Image: NCReedplayer/Flickr

First-Generation Starship

Petition Signatures: ~7,200
“Few things could collectively inspire people on Earth more than seeing the Enterprise being built in space,” reads this petition, filed December 22 by BuildtheEnterprise.org. The petition also claims that constructing a first-generation USS Enterprise-like starship falls within today’s technological capability, and humbly suggests that the White House assign NASA to conduct a feasibility and design study. Though it would take 20 years to build, the interplanetary vessel would eventually “go on amazing missions” – and, we hope, avoid Tribbles.
Note: This petition has been taken down after failing to attract enough signatures by the deadline. Screen grab is below.Image: jeffc5000/Flickr

Protect Sasquatch!

Petition Signatures: ~1,100
If the creators of this petition have their way, Bigfoot and his kin will be recognized as an indigenous species and “lawfully protected by laws.” The laws would ban the hunting, trapping, or killing of these hairy ape-like creatures that mysteriously elude efforts by scientists to verify their existence.
Except, of course, by a veterinarian at DNA Diagnostics who claims to have acquired and sequenced Sasquatch DNA.
Image: Peachland Joe/Flickr

Open-Access Publishing

Petition Signatures: ~60,200
Free access to scientific journal articles arising from taxpayer-funded research is essential, argues this petition, filed in May 2012. "Requiring the published results of taxpayer-funded research to be posted on the Internet in human and machine readable form would provide access to patients and caregivers, students and their teachers, researchers, entrepreneurs, and other taxpayers who paid for the research," the petition says.
Though this petition crossed the signature threshold in June, there doesn't appear to be an official White House response yet.
The open-access debate has been raging between scientists and journal publishers for a while, and recently rose to greater visibility with the death of computer activist Aaron Swartz, a champion of open-access publishing. In September 2010, Swartz used MIT’s network to download and liberate millions of journal articles that originally resided behind a paywall. After he was caught, Swartz was aggressively investigated and threatened with what many consider to be disproportional criminal repercussions.
Coincidentally, there’s also a petition to remove U.S. District Attorney Carmen Ortiz – blamed by many for the aggressive investigation of Aaron Swartz – from office (signatures: 43,000+).
Image: Biblioteekje/Flickr

Remove Congressman Paul Broun from the United States House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology

Petition Signatures: ~8,700
“All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology, Big Bang theory -- all that is lies straight from the pit of hell,” congressman Paul Broun (R-GA) said in October. He continued, “There are a lot of scientific data, that I’ve found out as a scientist [Broun holds an M.D.], that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don’t believe that’s Earth’s but about 9,000 years old.”
Filed Jan. 18, this petition suggests that Broun’s preference for religious teachings affects the decisions he makes as a member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
That’s right: Broun is a member of the congressional committee that oversees non-defense federal research at agencies like NASA, NOAA, NSF, and USGS. In 1958, congress created the committee’s predecessor -- the House Committee on Science and Astronautics -- after the Soviets launched Sputnik 1. One of the committee’s first acts was to create NASA. Over the years, its reach expanded to include environment, alternative energy sources, weather, and atomic energy research programs.
Video: Bridge Project 21/YouTube

Lose the Pounds

Petition Signatures: ~35,400
The British Imperial System – which measures things in units of feet, miles, pounds, gallons, and more – is chaotic and convoluted, argues this petition, filed in December. “We [the U.S.] stubbornly still adhere to using the imprecise Imperial Unit -- despite the fact that practically every other country that we interact with uses Metric,” it says.
But the metric system – which measures things in units like kilograms, meters, and liters – isn’t without its problems; perhaps most significantly, the standard kilogram isn’t as standard as it ought to be.
Maybe we ought to consider adopting the Potrzebie System of Weights and Measures, or measuring things in Sagans and Smoots.
Image: Nils Geylen/Flickr

Make a $1 Trillion Coin

Petition Signatures: ~11,200
The idea of minting a single platinum coin worth one trillion dollars is “No more absurd than playing political football with the US -- and global -- economy at stake,”says this petition, filed Jan. 3.
At Wired Science, we approached this suggestion from a more arithmetical point of view, and calculated the value of a platinum coin the size of a silver dollar -- about $1200. And though it’s not what’s being considered, a coin minted from $1 trillion worth of platinum would be too big to fit in any bank, too heavy for your average wallet: weighing almost 43 million pounds, the coin would be roughly 80 feet across and 6 feet thick.
Image: Alchemist-hp/Wikimedia commons

Make Distributed Denial of Service a Legal Form of Protest

Petition Signatures: ~5,600
Submitted by hacktivist group Anonymous on Jan. 7, this petition asks the White House to consider decriminalizing the server-flooding tactic that knocks websites offline. DDoS maneuvers have been used on a number of targets, including U.S. and British government websites. The petition suggests that DDoS is not so much an “attack,” but the Internet equivalent of a sit-in or the Occupy protests. “Instead of a group of people standing outside a building to occupy the area, they are having their computer occupy a website to slow (or deny) service of that particular website for a short time,” the petition reads.
Image: pameladrew2012/Flickr

Dump Daylight Saving Time

Petition signatures: ~5,700
First conceived by Benjamin Franklin, Daylight Saving Time is still a bone of contention. “Every year, ‘Spring forward’ causes clear and obvious loss of productivity: time required to adjust clocks, missed meetings, grumpy/confused/tired people, stressed parents...,” says this petition, filed Jan. 12.
We’re not sure what kind of crazy-ass clock you guys are working with, but there are compelling arguments both for and against Daylight Saving Time. Regardless of which camp you align with, one thing is clear: It’s damn confusing having some states on, some states off, some countries on, others off.
And the recent switch in switching clocks doesn’t help matters.
Let’s sort it out.
Image: Wikimedia Commons